I think that all mind patternings are expressed in movement, through the body. And that all physical moving patterns have a mind.  

  – Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

This is my granddaughter and her guardian, the Spanish Galgo, Cho.  As she was learning to crawl, Cho was there.  He was just present, and I don’t think he was aware or cared that she was making a huge developmental leap.  Laila did not just learn to crawl.  She learned to FLY on all fours.  And that bodily exuberance is, to my heart and eye, the pattern of her young exuberant mind.  I credit her mother, my daughter, fully here.  She is the unwavering in her devotion, her attention, her enthusiasm and her love.

Since my other daughter ran away, I have felt some other kinds of patterns emerge in myself.  Patterns of not breathing, not moving – the immobilizing effects of trauma.  Some days it takes a a moment-by-moment act of will or faith to keep moving forward.  And yet what choice is there?  Forward is all there is, right?

This came from Abraham the other day, and just in time.  “The best you can do for anyone is to thrive fully and be willing to explain to anyone who asks how it is that you are thriving, and what it is that you’ve discovered—and then, just relax and trust that all truly is well.”

There is nothing that I can do for or about my lost daughter at this time.  There is much I can and must do for myself.  Breathe in, breathe out is the start.